Eureka, Lake Koocanusa, and the Libby Dam

Jun 22nd 2009 — Biking,Montana,Montana and Idaho Loop — 1:24 pm

North of Glacier, 7 miles from the border of Canada, we encountered the town of Eureka, which was soon followed to the west by Lake Koocanusa (best pronounced “Koo-can-u-s-a”) and its creator the Libby Dam.

Eureka is a small town that is big on logging, like most towns in northwest Montana. It was easy to see why, biking around the supply of trees seemed about limitless. They had a nice exhibit with multiple historic building, pictures, and objects from the past 100 years or so. The whole exhibit was a rather grand effort to keep history alive for a town of 1000 people.

Lake Kookanusa itself was gigantic. We rode along it for 50 or 60 miles and only saw the southern half of the lake. The lake was created when the Libby dam stopped the flow of the Kootenai River, the third largest tributary of the Columbia River (according to Wikipedia), in the early 70’s. The older I get the more anti-dam I become. Let the river flow I say.

BK Lounge Underwater Towns Buzz Martin Jim CRW_3447-square Koocanusa Bridge Libby Dam 2 Libby Dam 2 Me con Pabst

7 Comments »

  1. Your bike trip looks like it was fantasticccc and that PBR is making me drool. You’re still coming back sometime in August I hope? Hope to see you then broseph

    much love from Nepal

    Comment by Davy — June 23, 2009 @ 3:35 am
  2. I LOVE DAMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Comment by Busy S — June 23, 2009 @ 8:23 am
  3. Beautiful bridge and handsome bikers! Loving the views!!

    Comment by eliza — June 23, 2009 @ 9:13 am
  4. dude, (Nature boy Michael Sulock) we need to make T-shirts of the logger album. I was thinking plain white with the album large and front center. It would be pretty cool.

    Comment by Busy S — June 24, 2009 @ 8:04 am
  5. I’m gonna get all of Buzz Martins songs on Napster!

    Comment by Luke — June 26, 2009 @ 6:38 am
  6. jeff…make one of those t-shirts and send it to me.

    luke….with the combined powers of buzz martin and bob wagg you might be unstoppable.

    Comment by michael — June 29, 2009 @ 4:01 pm
  7. I think Bette Midler also said “Let the river run.”

    Comment by Rebecca — June 30, 2009 @ 8:37 pm

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